Raffaele Sollecito leaves a hotel in March 2015 after being acquitted of murder along with his former girlfriend Amanda Knox.
Photograph: Luca Turi/EPA

An Italian court has rejected a compensation claim for more than €500,000 (£426,000) by Raffaele Sollecito, who was cleared of the 2007 murder of the British exchange student Meredith Kercher after spending nearly four years in jail.

Sollecito was arrested days after the murder. Kercher was Knox’s roommate in Perugia and had been studying on an Erasmus programme when she was stabbed to death in the flat they shared.

Sollecito said the protracted ordeal left his family with debts of €400,000. But his claim was rejected on Saturday by the Florence appeals court, which took into account contradictions in Sollecito’s statements at the start of the murder investigation.

While the court acknowledged Sollecito’s unjust imprisonment in the light of his eventual acquittal, it said in a ruling that he contributed by making “contradictory or even frankly untrue” statements in the early stages of the investigation, which constituted “intent or gross negligence”. The court ruled that this eliminated Sollecito’s right to compensation.

Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica in the immediate aftermath of his acquittal, Sollecito said: “For seven years I have had a suspended life, I have lived with the fear of being arrested, but knowing I am innocent.”

Writing on Facebook after the latest court decision, Sollecito said: “I thought I had lived through the darkest pages of the Italian justice system, but despite being declared innocent by the supreme court, I must acknowledge that my harsh detention was justified.”

Sollecito’s lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, said she would appeal the decision at the supreme court, arguing that the Florence appeals court had failed to consider that his conflicting statements in the early days of the murder investigation were given under duress.